News Room

LA Supervisors Want to Beef Up Home Visitation Programs

Two Los Angeles County Supervisors are calling for steps to better coordinate and expand the work of several voluntary home visitation programs that help parents raise healthier children.

Arguing that the various programs and their funding are disjointed, Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Janice Hahn proposed a motion for Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting that would order the County Department of Public Health to develop a plan “to coordinate, enhance, expand and advocate for high quality home visiting programs.”

“Families benefit when they have help early on,” said Kuehl, who also chairs the First 5 LA Commission. She told KPCC that she wants to grow the county’s programs so that “more and more and more and more and more families with newborns can have this kind of help.”

The motion would instruct Public Health, in partnership with an array of other county agencies and First 5 L.A., to create a coordinated system that would make it easier to refer families to appropriate programs. It would also ask them to study best practices and develop an outreach plan that would target pregnant women, especially those in high-risk communities.